An “Udderly” Unexpected Discovery

Scientists have been studying ways to reduce the amount of methane that cows produce, and Canadian farmer Joe Dorgan may have found the key.

Dorgan started feeding his cows seaweed as a way of cutting costs on his farm.

In many coastal areas, cows graze on seaweed which has washed up on the beach.

He teamed up with Rob Kinley, an agricultural research scientist then at Canada’s Dalhousie University. They found that his cows produced 20 percent less methane on the seaweed diet.

Together they tested other strains of seaweed and discovered that Asparagopsis taxiformis – a type of red-seaweed – reduced the amount of methane from cows to nearly zero.

“It’s really a game changer if we can get this out into the market,” Kinley told Canadian broadcaster CBC News.

“Ruminant animals are responsible for roughly 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally, so it’s not a small number,” said Kinley, using the scientific name for cows and other animals with four stomachs.

“We’re talking numbers equivalent to hundreds of millions of cars.”

Methane only lasts for about 10 years in the atmosphere, unlike CO2 which can stick around for hundreds of years.

This all means if farmers start feeding their cows with a mix including this seaweed, humanity could score a huge win in the battle against climate change – one fart at a time.